Ep. 59 - Canaan Unconquered

So, in the last 3 episodes we had kinda left the story of the Israelites to talk about Job. So let’s get back to our good old friends the Israelites. And the last we left them, Joshua had just died. Joshua had led the Israelites in all the big battles against the people who lived in Canaan. And then the Israelite army split up and each tribe was supposed to go conquer their own land. But after a few years went by, Joshua started getting worried…the Israelites were not conquering the land. And they seemed to be getting way too friendly with their heathen neighbours…and their heathen religions. Didn’t they know that these horrible religions were the whole reason that the Israelites had been sent to conquer Canaan in the first place? So, Joshua called all the leaders together and they all promised to stay away from the heathen religions and to continue the fight. Joshua setup a stone at Shechem so that the people would remember their promise. And then…Joshua died. Would the Israelites continue the fight? Would the Israelites stay away from the heathen religions? Well…let’s find out.

Well at first, the Israelites did continue the fight. And the Bible says, “after the death of Joshua it came to pass that the children of Israel asked the Lord, saying, ‘Who shall be first to go up for us against the Canaanites to fight against them?’ And the Lord said, ‘Judah shall go up. Indeed I have delivered the land into his hand.’” (Judges 1:2) The tribe of Judah then talked to the tribe of Simeon (who had land right in the middle Judah’s land) and they went to battle together. And indeed, God gave them the victory. The two tribes defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites…and even managed to kill 10,000 men in one battle. Then Judah went north and attacked Jerusalem and defeated it (even though Jerusalem seems to have been in the tribe of Benjamin’s land). Judah then turned south and attacked Hebron. Then they went even farther south and attacked Hormah, then turned west and attacked Gaza (a city that still exists today), Ashkelon, and Enron…defeating all those cities. And the Bible says, “So the Lord was with Judah. And they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland, because they had chariots of iron.” (1:19) So the tribe of Judah had many victories. And while they were not able to completely defeat everyone, they kept up the fight. And other than Judah and Simeon, the Bible also says that, “the house of Joseph (that is to say, the half tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh) also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them” (1:22) So Ephraim and Manasseh also made some progress.

But that seemed to be about it for the victories. The tribes of Issachar, Gad and Reuben didn’t have much conquering to do because they had already fully conquered their lands even before the tribes split up. But the tribes of Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali, and Dan had a harder time of it. Huge parts of their lands were still unconquered. Some tribes, like Dan and Asher, were entirely unconquered. It seems that the Canaanites and Amorites were, as the Bible says, “determined to dwell in the land” (1:27,35) and decided to make things super difficult for the Israelites. (BTW kidzos, don’t forget that I have maps of all this stuff, including a map of which lands were given to the different tribes, and a map of which lands the Israelites conquered, up at papasbiblestories.com… so don’t forget to check that out.)

And at some point, these tribes said to themselves…you know what, this is just too hard. These Canaanites and Amorites…boy they fight like crazy…and boy all these iron chariots are tough! We’re working super hard and we are only slowly taking ground. And ya know, these people aren’t causing any trouble for us…it’s not like they are attacking us…so why don’t we just let them be? And that’s when they made a huge mistake. And the Bible says, “it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites under tribute.” (1:28) The same thing was done with the Amorites. “Tribute” means that the Israelites came to an agreement with the Canaanites and the Amorites. And the agreement was something like, “ok you guys are making things super difficult…so you can stay…and we will leave you alone, but for a price”. Basically, it was paying for peace. And after some time, the Israelites did more and more of this…until eventually…they just stopped fighting.

Well, that doesn’t sound so bad. I mean…that’s peace in the Middle East, right? What could be so wrong about that? What was the huge mistake? Well, if you kidzos will remember from our bonus episode on “Killing the Canaanites”, the whole reason that God sent the Israelites to conquer Canaan in the first place was to stop all the horrible things that were going on there (like sacrificing babies). And if the people living in Canaan were still there, guess what…those horrible things would continue happening. Also, I don’t think I talked about this in the episode about Mt. Sinai and the covenant, but when God made his covenant with Israel (and don’t forget that a covenant is just an agreement where two sides promise to do and not do certain things), God had said that He would fight for Israel to push the Canaanite people out of their land if they did and didn’t do certain things. And as part of that covenant, God had said, “You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against Me.” (Ex. 23:32) And what were the Israelites doing? Yah…making a covenant with the people left in Canaan that would let them dwell in the land.

And just as a side note, ya know if you go back and look at what God said about how He would fight for the Israelites, God had said this – “I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land.” So God had told the Israelites a long time before that, that He would help the Israelites to slowly push the people out. So, the Israelites should have been expecting long and difficult victories…and that the fight would go on for a long time. And maybe a side note on the side note, much of the time, that’s exactly what the life of a Christian is like. The Christian life is a life of struggle. Not like physical battles like what the Israelites were supposed to be doing, but a spiritual struggle…against things like…the temptation to do bad things, against the temptation to be just like everyone else, against the temptation to be comfortable and to just forget about the special plans that God has for you. Of course, it’s not all struggle…and there’s no peace like the peace of knowing that you are doing God’s will. But most of the time, it’s just not easy. And if you’re super comfortable, well, that probably means that there’s something wrong.

So, what was God going to do? Well, one day, the Bible says that “the Angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said: “I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you. And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed My voice. Why have you done this? Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they shall be thorns in your side, and their gods shall be a snare to you.’”” (2:1-3) Somehow, God appeared to all the Israelites and delivered some bad news. Because the Israelites had broken their side of the covenant…God was going to have to break His side of the covenant. If the Israelites were going to make agreements with the people living in Canaan, well, then God would no longer fight for the Israelites. And the people who still lived in Canaan…well, they were now there to stay. And they would be a constant thorn in the side of the Israelites. This was horrible news. And the Bible says that “when the Angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voices and wept.” (2:4)

And for many years, this was what normal became in Canaan. The Israelites continued to be the strongest nation in Canaan, and they lived next to the remaining weak but unconquered people of Canaan, which were the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites (3:5). And even though God had judged Israel, Israelites stayed faithful to God…at least for a while. And the Bible says, “Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of the Lord which He had done for Israel.” (Josh. 24:31)

But unfortunately, these happy times were not to last for long. Because the Bible goes on to say, “When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel.” (2:10) So over time, all the people who’d seen the Jordan river miraculously stopped, all the people who’d seen the walls of Jericho fall, all the people who’d seen the sun standing still…they all eventually died off. And their children grew up and didn’t “know” who God was or all the amazing things He’d done for Israel. Now, I’m sure that the parents of these children had told them all the stories…I mean…how could you keep all that stuff to yourself. But ya know…there’s a difference between knowing…and knowing. Like for example, we all “know” that having too much screen time is bad for you…but there’s a difference between knowing and then still watching too much…and knowing and keeping the screen time to a minimum. We all know that having too much sugar is bad for you…but there’s a difference between knowing and eating all the sugar you want…and knowing and having sugar only once in a while. And just like that, this new generation of Israelites knew God and they knew all the amazing stories…but they didn’t really know…because they didn’t let it change their lives.

And unfortunately, this very quickly led the Israelites down a dark path. First, the Bible says that the Israelites, “took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons.” (3:6) So the Israelites began marrying the people in Canaan. And then Bible says that the Israelites, “did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals; and they forsook the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them;” (2:11-12) Unbelievably, within a generation of arriving in the Promised Land, the Israelites began worshipping the gods of the people left in Canaan…the very people that they were supposed to be fighting. And not only that, but the Bible says that “they even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. And shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood.” (Psalms 106:37-38) So not only were the Israelites worshipping heathen gods, but they were taking part in their religious practices…including the most horrible religious practice of all - child sacrifice.

How could this have happened? How could the Israelites have gone from being God’s chosen people, the people who were supposed to show what God was like to the rest of the world, the people who were supposed to stop all the horrible things going on in Canaan…to being the people who went against God, who started worshiping the Baals, and who started doing all the horrible things in Canaan? I mean, imagine the thousands…maybe millions of Hebrews and Israelites going all the way back to Abraham…maybe up to 25 generations of people including many generation of slaves in Egypt…who had clung to the promises given to Abraham…that one day they would live in the Promised Land…that they would inherit a land of full of milk and honey…and that they would finally have a home for themselves? All to have the very first generation born in the Promised Land throw it all away and go against the very God who had delivered on all His promises? It was almost beyond understanding.

So, what was God going to do? The very people that He’d spent so much time and effort on had started doing the very things that He’d sent them there to stop. The very people that he’d brought through hundreds of years of wandering had turned against Him. The very people who He’d done unfathomable miracles for had chosen fake gods. Would God give give up on the Israelites? Would the generations of promises end with this one unfaithful generation? Well, we will find out all about it…next time.